Meditations & Observations on : My 2018.

2018, a year in review. One of the fastest years of my life. A year of extremes, a year of ending of chapters.I focus more on failures than on successes, because in my ventures have experienced failure and to say the least it did not feel good. This has lead me to become more risk averse, as a teen i was taking a lot of stupid foolish risks, and some of them very nearly fucked me up.They did teach me a lot of lessons however, they taught me a lot about risk and reward, about momentum. In hindsight, and this is what this letter is about, hindsight, is i do not regret how very nearly i fucked up my life. I am proud of it, in some fucked up way, i look back and think that time where i very nearly fucked up everything forever, is a tale not many can tell about, and even less can relate to.I am slowly coming to terms of that traumatic period which i have reflected back on through my other letters to myself, but coming to become proud of my foolishness is not my aim, my aim is to tell myself, so what ? I didn't fucking die. I am still fucking alive. I woke up the next day and brushed my teeth and many days since then. This has lead me asking the question where i feel my self doubting myself

Will I die ?The answer is usually a no, and even if I do die, so what. Asking yourself questions that most of humanity dont ask themselves is a good way to get to novel results. Orthogonal thinking.This close brush to the abyss, really did have a long and lasting effect on me. I hope that i am now back to my do not give a fuck attitude and back to my risk seeking behaviours in terms of my business ventures as I was previously. This is clear with my online re-orientation. I personally do not like talking about myself ormy past, but as this is a letter to myself I hope to be honest with myself. I need to go back to putting my foot on the pedal, and increase my throttling, my aims and objectives hopefully reflect this enthusiasm for life.

In my final year of university. I had a lot of spare time, mostly because i decided to focus on one thing and that is to learn, i voraciously read and wrote. This year was great in that sense, i have learnt more in this one year than many other years in contrast combined. I had one overarching goal this year and i have feel as though i have achieved this.

How did i achieve this ?

• 1) Do this one task more hours than i have slept.

• 2) Sacrifice all that comes in the way of the above

This year i have trained myself to become more goal oriented too, to be able to put myself through pain and misery, for the achievement of that goal.

This year included :

Sleeping on the floor, retiring my bed and mattress. For the entirety of the year and more, I had made a pledge with myself to sleep on the floor. I wanted to make myself uncomfortable in a world that prioritises comfort and luxury, the world zigs, and I the ever contrarian, ZAGS. This nature of mine was even seen in how I had kept my head as a skin head for 3 years, of which as of writing this letter I have outgrown. I feel like I no longer need to prove myself that I am willing to stand out, which I had been doing for a while wearing my all black designer wear since before my twenties, and willing to not give a fuck what people thought of me.

We are inundated by excess and luxury, I got rid of the biggest thing that provides this luxury to those in the modern and first world. The modern world is domesticated. I am in fear of becoming domesticated, to become fat and emasculated. The very aesthetic of this type of cuckening makes me revolt and recoil. The symbol of a bed in my life had to be cut out, it got in the way, it was useless, and my heuristic is that I ought to use what is useful. I had found myself falling asleep on my bed too much on 2017, and wanted to put a stop to it, and focus solely on productive ends.

Seeking out uncomfort is a stoic practice, Cato did it so to teach himself to be only ashamed of what ashamed and that is not of what a man looks likes, but rather by such actions which truly require shame, those actions which betray virtue. I aim to mimic and emulate great men, so that maybe some of their virtue rubs off on me. I recognise greatness.

Fasting and going on a no carb diet to the point of almost having a break down and losing patience with people. However the result was great for my body. As you can see this notion of extremes is prevalent in many of my ventures of this year. I called this the barbell effect, a balanced extremes.

Climbing more mountains, i really do enjoy mountains, because there is a very definite line of success and failure. You either climb it and beat the mountain, or it beats you. The mountain at first sight puts a slight terror into my bones, seeing the sun glistening off the white snow top and into my soul, a challenge sent from the almighty himself. The mountain was not for me just a physical obstacle, but a mental one. I did honestly want to prove to myself, I knew I had to build my own confidence, by building my wins. I wanted a psychological edge, and thought in order to prove myself and judge my fitness levels I would climb mountains on the regular.

Although I did not go skinny dipping in freezing cold Scandinavian waters as I had done in 2017, I did go to Denmark, although I would not call that experience a highlight of my year. I used to quote Seneca on my disdain of travelling, that many do it to escape themselves, through my own personal travels I think Seneca may have been too harsh, travelling is a great way to keep a check on your ego(hate that word) and on your humility. It is mainly too harsh because of the many unknown unknowns that are encompassed in encountering people who live in alien worlds, and meeting and greeting them as fellow humans, there is so much life out there, I am keen to keep meeting people and breaking bread with them.

The years go by and i lose and make friends, and rediscover others. I am ambivalent to these losses, I would like to reflect on where I went wrong rather than lament the loss itself, a learned response.

I applied to the army this year. I have had the call towards it for a long time, this year I applied. Although I have not completed the full process and I am still having doubts as to whether this would be the best application of my self and my talents. I am including this in my letter, as I have spent many hours thinking upon it, many more than I should have, the question of it is related to what kind of legacy do I want my actions to echo for all of eternity.

One of the biggest impacts that have been had on my life this year were, crypto and twitter, both have introduced me to two strands of thought and new people, i am truly grateful for both.

Twitter in particular has introduced me to a whole load of people who I am honestly grateful to have in my life. Its helped me network and exchange ideas, helped me launch a think tank, helping me networking and with my business and creative endeavours.

I am hopeful and optimistic about 2019, i am willing to put in the work and i am willing to sacrifice.

This is my 2019 “brain tattoo”, my idealised aesthetic:

Open to failure, ready to learn.

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